


A Dangerous Proposition

by After_Baker_Street



Series: Back Together Again [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Declarations Of Love, First Kiss, Kissing, Love, M/M, Making Out, POV John Watson, Post Reichenbach, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 05:59:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/After_Baker_Street/pseuds/After_Baker_Street
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John finally gathers the courage to show Sherlock how he feels, but Sherlock's response is unexpected. As John says - </p><p>"This is the story of how I broke Sherlock Holmes, and how he put himself back together again."</p><p>(This is a work in progress, and will be continued. Future posts to include: more Johnlock, sex, romance, visiting Mummy Holmes, Sherlock's history, John's history, etc.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dangerous Proposition

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress, and will be continued. Future posts to include: more Johnlock, sex, romance, visiting Mummy Holmes, Sherlock's history, John's history, etc.

This is the story of how I broke Sherlock Holmes, and how he put himself back together again.

*

I’ve been close to death, many times. But the prospect of losing Sherlock again so soon after finding him was what pushed me over the edge. We had made our way back to the flat, half drowned from the rain. He was laughing all the way up the stairs though, with that infuriatingly childlike excitement he has during a case that’s going our way. Nevermind that he’d been shot at, nevermind that if I hadn’t been there, hadn’t fired back, he certainly _would_ have been shot.

But the adrenaline rush had already faded for me, and I found myself cold, shaking, and unsteady on my feet. Sherlock leaned, loose-limbed as always, against the door after he closed it behind us. His mouth was already quirked into a smile as I drove myself against him, out of anger, out of desperation. Looking up, my face barely brushed against his neck. Some dark hunger ground out of me, and I pressed myself close to him, my hands finding their way around his waist. It was warm there, between the thin shirt and jacket.

His head snapped back.

“John, what’s this?”

His voice was razor sharp to start, and he lifted his arms wide. I could have stepped away, but I wouldn’t. Especially since his voice had softened strangely at the end of the question.

“Please... just, Sherlock, I need this. I can’t have you getting shot so soon after...I can’t lose you again.” I hated my voice just then, shaking with uncertainty and desperation. I felt him relax and then tense, shaking off a sharp jerk of his shoulders as he wrapped his arms around me.

“Oh, John,” he whispered, his voice low and soft, with just a hint of laughter beneath. His breath warm and sweet somehow, down the side of my face. “this isn’t something I _do._ ” But his hands gripped me through my wet jumper, gripping hard, hard enough to hurt, even as he said it.

“That makes two of us, then.” I answered, a laugh playing through me. He pressed his lips to my forehead, even as he drew me in. He breathed my name again, half question, half plea. So I turned my face up to his, caught his bright eyes sparkling and threatening swallow me whole. So I closed my eyes and couldn’t suppress the shiver that ripped through me, pleasure and cold and fear, all one as his lips brushed mine. He did not move closer, but breathed one word, ragged with desire.

“Please.”

And I reached to pull him down to me, into a kiss that was warm and searching. His agile mouth tasted so sweet that I heard myself give a moan as he pulled away. It wasn’t years of desire and wonder wrapped up into one, it was simply the most right thing I had ever felt.

In a quick motion, he grabbed the hem of my wet jumper and pulled it over my head, engulfing me in the smell of damp wool, before he pulled all the way off. He just let go once it was off, and it fell to the floor. I looked up at him, as he pulled me closer again. The chill air in the flat made goosebumps rise along my arms and neck.

“It was wet and you were cold and I...I didn’t want it.” That hesitation in his voice was something new, and it surprised me. He folded me in his arms. It was warm and slightly damp as I leant my cheek against his heaving chest. His voice came rumbling out low, from his chest. So low I could hardly make it out, though his lips were inches from my ears.

“Do you hear, John? My heart...”

It was racing.

A rising tide of joy swept through the exhaustion and the fear as my lips found his again. I swear I heard the paradigm of the world shift. Or maybe it was the sound of my own breathing, our mouths as I leaned in eagerly. And I was met with the same total intensity he brings to everything, verging on madness. He gave a wordless, throaty growl as I pulled away for air. Then my mouth found his neck, the line of his jaw. As his back arched and he ground his hips into me, I was washed with a sense of relief so heavy it nearly took me to my knees. Reaching out to Sherlock is always a dangerous proposition, and changing the rules on him so dangerous I’d advise anyone against it.

I’m not sure what he thought of that sudden shudder, but there it was again - the boyish half-smile. The I’ve-discovered-the-answer-to-this riddle smile flirting at the edges of his mouth.

“You idiot,” he whispered as his eyes met mine. They were liquid and soft, but I froze and jerked away. “What took you so long?” He sagged into me, the weight of him pulling against me as he shrugged off the tension wound so tightly around him. He was burning, almost feverish, as I worked my hands under his shirt. He gasped, though my mouth was on his, as my cold hands slipped along the smooth expanse of his back. He leaned away from me, ripping his scarf away, but instead of letting it fall, he looped it around me. He turned the other direction, but kept me pressed to him, so we gave a quick turn, there in the foyer. As he took a step backwards, he tugged at the scarf, taking me off balance so that I walked with him.

“You’re cold, come with me.” he murmured, his voice heavy with thunder as he gave a teasing flick of his eyebrows. So I pulled him into me, my hand at the small of his back, and the other reaching for his, so that we were almost dancing. Though hesitant, I have always been the more surefooted, the more balanced between us, so I lead him to the bedroom.

There, I felt him hesitate. We were standing in the wan light that shone in through the window, and he was suddenly passive, as I started to peel his jacket back from his shoulders. The laughter had dropped from his voice and he was silent. He looked at me, suddenly lost. I realized he hadn’t had anyone in his bed in... well, ever, for all I knew. Staring up at that pale face, winding my fingers through that dark halo of hair, I wondered if I was going to show him something for once. It would be a little new to me, but not like it would be to Sherlock.

“Sherlock, it’s alright. Is this what you want?”

And in a flash, it was gone, as he answered “Yes. Yes, of course.” He gently peeled my wet t-shirt off, and my hands were racing for the buttons on his shirt. I don’t know when I’ve moved more quickly, and I’ve been shot at.

As his shirt crumpled to the ground, he wrapped his arms around me again, hands stroking across my bare back. I untangled myself, just for a moment, to look at him, so pale and tall in the fading light. I was struck with the beauty of the strange architecture of his body.

“Oh, you’re so...” I struggled, feeling suddenly small and ordinary. But he leant down, just barely, to look me in the eye and grasp me hard, by the arms. I could tell he was a little taken aback by his own force, and he gently pushed me into the bed. He was on his knees on top of me. We kissed there; teasing, laughing kisses, until I was driven nearly mad by the heat and pressure of his erection pressing against my waist, even through the fabric of his trousers. I wound my hands again into those dark curls and I pressed his mouth, hard, into mine, as my tongue found his. He pulled away, his long hands slid along my chest, holding me down lightly as he slipped his hips down and leaned, until he was on the floor, kneeling in front of me. He kissed my chest, my belly, slowly, his breath whispering across my skin, catching the hair there. He reached for my belt and I let out a sharp sound as his fingers grazed the head of my cock. I took a deep breath and he worked his tongue down my side, and I reached to help unfasten my belt.

His shoulders gave that strange jerk again, the same one as we first kissed in the hallway. He stopped and leaned into me, only a little at first, his forehead pressing against my side. He sort of collapsed against me and a strangled little sound made its way out of his throat.

It was as quick as the flick of a switch. Too much unfamiliar ground for Sherlock, maybe. I’d seen him just turn off before, when he was processing new information. But this felt different.

“Hey, hey,” I said gently, clearly “you alright?”

I don’t know what I expected - the quick retort I was used to from him - “of course I’m alright” or even a question, but not what happened.

Silence.

Sherlock always has an answer, but he speaks on his own terms. God knows I’d learned that over the years.

I took a slow, steadying breath and stroked his bare shoulder. Desire had already faded to concern, then concern to worry as I felt hot tears sear down my side. I began to speak, quietly, in a way that would normally infuriate him, in that voice that comes out of all of us naturally around things that are hurt, or scared. And he seemed both.

“It’s alright, it’s okay, you’re alright, let’s just sit and talk, hush now.”

I stroked his hair, rubbed his shoulder. He felt frozen, and tense as a spring. His breath was at first hitched and sharp, then slow, as he worked to steady himself. I wondered what lay on the other side of this for me, dread threading its way through the worry.

How many minutes we laid like that, I don’t know. Him, on his knees, pressed into my side.

Then he muttered something as he lifted his face. It was so strangled that I missed what he said. The stricken look there, in those pale eyes took my breath away but I asked, in the same calm voice - “What? What’s that?”

“I’m not...” he faltered. “I’m not what they think I am.”

It echoed so clearly what he said before...before the time he tore me apart to save me. But it was so similar that fear ripped through me. But that was behind us, done. And it carried a different weight.

“What’s that?” I started to ask, again. But he said it again, more forcefully, desperate, his head shaking. My mind was spinning, searching for clues to set him right again. His throat worked strangely as he swallowed down a sob. At that, I was fighting tears. It didn’t matter who they were, or what they’d said. If Sherlock said they were wrong, they were.

So I gathered him to me, pulling him onto the bed properly. He was coltish, all long legs and arms, until I sorted him out, held him to my chest.

“Oh, I know, love. I know you’re not.”

Just after I’d said it, what sounded like the most inane comforting thing my half-stunned brain could come up with, a sob escaped him, raw and jagged. He lifted a hand to cover his mouth. Sally Donovan’s voice found its way to the fore of my thoughts, and poured poison in my ear.

“Freak.” her memory insisted.

The man shaking beside me wasn’t a freak. The man I’d kissed in the doorway certainly wasn’t. He was cold, and often strange, but over the years I’d begun to cross out the symptoms of sociopathology. When he said “they” he he meant them, the ones who had called him such things, even me. I had called him a machine, heard others say far worse. I regretted it bitterly, and told him so, after he came back to me. But I don’t know if he heard the apology, if he could hear it.

He cried hard, and though I was bewildered by the show of emotion, I realized suddenly that this was perhaps the first time he’d ever admitted it to himself: that he wasn’t what they said he was. Or more importantly, wasn’t what he said he was.

“It’s alright, it’s alright. I know, I know, shhh.” I repeated over and over again into that mop of dark curls until he could speak again. He finally lifted his head, his eyes red and his face taut and streaked with tears. “I’m not, John. I’m not.” I met those wild blue eyes and said slowly, with meaning “I. know.” when his lip trembled I rushed “I know, and it’s good, it’s okay.”

With that said, he wrapped his arms around me, and held on tight. He didn’t speak again, but shook his head when I asked him anything, until finally I settled for stroking his back, his hair, his face. Eventually the tears slowed to a stop, and his breath came even. He slept.

And I was spinning. Sherlock crying? Sleeping? Especially after something important had happened. What on Earth? I puzzled it out until finally exhaustion took me and I gave in to the sweet pressure of him against my chest and slept.

*  
I’ve always been a light sleeper, so I heard him slide off the bed beside me, even before I opened my eyes. He was standing in morning’s earliest light, still grey, but shot through with gold. I could barely make him out, shrugging into his dressing gown.

He was facing away from me, but his shoulders were back, stiff.

“Alright then?” I asked, my voice still half-asleep. When he turned to me, his eyes were ice and steel, his face set in a cold mask.

“John, yes. About last night. The stress of the case had obviously gotten to you, gotten to us both. Terribly...” he searched for a word. “unfocused of me. Not to worry, our primal instincts sometimes get the better of us. Nothing to be embarrassed about, but it won’t happen again.”

I could barely process what he was saying, but the tone was clear. I was being dismissed. He looked quizzically at me, prompting me to agree.

There were things I should have said, could have said. Sometimes I think the history of our relationship ‘til now could have been written in what should have been said during those silences.

But I would not agree. I didn’t start with any of the arguments I could have made, but instead, still heavy with sleep I said simply what I felt - “Don’t, Sherlock, no. Not this. Please.”

And I reached my hand out to him, expecting, no, knowing that he’d turn away. I was begging, and it would tear us both apart. Me, at least.

But he froze, looking down at my open hand as though it were totally foreign to him. His eyes traced the shape of my fingers, my palm, then my arm, intimately. Up to the terrible scarring at my shoulder, where doctors less talented than I struggled to put me together again after I was shot. It was eons ago. Before I’d ever met Sherlock. In another life, it seemed sometimes.

He lingered there a while, and I fought the urge to cover my shoulder with my other hand. I had seen him do this before, knew he might be calculating the easiest way to break me. His eyes skipped up, to study my face, but not meet my eyes.

The mask began to collapse a bit, around the edges, and his eyes.

He reached for my hand, and his fingertips lightly pressed against mine. Then he curled his hand into mine, entwining his long fingers with mine.

I grasped him and pulled him in, back to me.

He was turned away from me, but pressed his back into my belly and chest. I wrapped my arms around him and settled my chin on his shoulder. I stroked across his breastbone, ran my fingers around that sharp clavicle. My heart was racing, nervously, but he gave a quick sigh and settled again, into the bed, tilting his chin back, towards me.

“What’s all this?” I whispered quietly to him.

He took my hand, and held it in his, drawing it to his chest. “What if?,” he asked quietly, his voice deadly even and still, “What if it’s much worse than you think, John? What if I’m much worse than you think?”

“It’s alright,” I said, kissing his shoulder through the fine silk of his dressing gown. “That’s alright.” I said, and although I didn’t know what he meant, I trusted him. “It’s okay, just be here with me, Sherlock. Don’t...” I gestured away from us with our hands clasped together, “Don’t go anywhere.”

“You can’t possibly know what that entails.” His voice was cold and distant, tinged with sarcasm, but he pulled my hand back in towards him.

“I don’t care.” I said quietly, “I love you, I’ve loved you since...since I can’t even say, Sherlock. I should have told you ages ago, but I didn’t know it. Didn’t know how.”

He gave a hiccup of a cry, somewhere between pain and joy. He didn’t answer me, didn’t say anything, but laid, shaking in my arms.

“I’m too...I’m broken, John.” He drew out the word broken as if it were a foreign language he’d never spoken before. “I’m not like other people. I don’t feel things like you should. Like people do. Not love, not any of it.”

But I knew that already, was sure of it, and was going to tell him so, but he continued on.

“All that, it...,” he went on, his voice breaking, “it was burned, burned out of me.”

If he had not been shaking so hard, he would have felt me shiver with the darkest fear I’d ever known. Hearing Jim Moriarty’s words through Sherlock turned my heart to ice in my chest. Fear flashed to disgust, and back to fear again as I realized those words held so much more meaning than I’d thought.

Moriarty had just found a button and pushed it.

So as calmly as I could, I said “But your heart, Sherlock, it’s still there. I heard it last night.”

He nodded, pulling himself into a ball.

“Will you stay with me, John?” He asked, his voice small, hesitant, dreading my answer. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Funny, coming from the man who had nearly walked away from me just a moment ago. “Of course.” as I answered, and he turned, wrapped his arms around my neck and settled his face into the hollow beneath my jaw.

“Alright,” he murmured, distractedly. “I’ll solve this.”

So he stayed with me all morning, occasionally turning, saying bits of things aloud. It was a process I knew well, but instead of demanding to be alone, for me to be quiet, he kept returning to press his body against mine. I dozed off and on, stirring when he moved, or asked me things like “Mycroft, John?” I agreed and said “Yes, Mycroft.” as though I knew what he was thinking. Occasionally, he’d say a whole thought aloud, things I’d never heard him talk about before, funny disconnected things like “They tried to get me to play cricket, can you imagine?” then things that gave me a little thrill of fear, though I wasn’t sure why, like “I was so much smaller than the other boys, so much younger.”

I left him eventually, for jam and toast and tea and eggs. I made him breakfast (though it was past lunchtime by then). It sat uneaten by the bed, like nearly every other meal I’d made him. He hardly seemed to notice when I unfolded him from me to make it, but when I returned, he reached for me. He asked where I’d been, as though I’d been gone for days.

“To make all this,” I said, “I told you half an hour ago.”

I plugged his phone in, at the nightstand, but he ignored it.

“Lestrade’s called six times.” I said, as he waved his hand away, as though to scatter gnats. He gave me a quick look of irritation, his nose scrunched. “And Mycroft...” I started, but he interrupted me.

“Shh, no. I don’t want them.” And he tugged at me, pulling me back down next to him.

So we passed that day, mostly in bed. Eventually I took up a book, and he ignored it, still occasionally asking for agreement.

 

 

Artwork for this chapter:

[Almost](http://afterbakerstreet.tumblr.com/post/51763814827/a-totally-hot-and-extremely-nsfw-image-by-the), by the amazing [sallyfuckingdonovan](http://sallyfuckingdonovan.tumblr.com/) (NSFW)


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